Brick Mansions hits US theaters in wide release April 25th from Relativity Media
Brick Mansions is dumb as rocks. Any critic who tries to tell you otherwise is selling something. That said, if you were to take said rocks, and place them on a scale, with “dumb” on the one side, and “fun” on the other? I’m here to tell you that the scale tips ever so slightly over onto the fun side. Sure, the scale is fairly even overall, with enough dumb to threaten to tip the balance. I’m certain many have a much lower “dumb threshold” than I do, and for those folks… their scale is going to be balanced a lot differently than mine. But I can’t deny that I found myself highly entertained by Brick Mansions.
An undercover Detroit cop navigates a dangerous neighborhood that’s surrounded by a containment wall with the help of an ex-con in order to bring down a crime lord and his plot to devastate the entire city.
And the way I see it, there are going to be three types of people who see this film:
1) People who are wholly unaware of a little film called Escape From New York, which was the source of inspiration behind the parkour-infused French action film District B13 (2004), of which Brick Mansions is a beat-for-beat remake.
2) People who are aware of District B13 (and EFNY) and obviously love that film, because it is awesome, and therefore hate Brick Mansions for being such a flagrant carbon copy.
3) People who are aware of District B13 and obviously love that film, because it is awesome, and who therefore kind of have a blast with Brick Mansions because of all the parkour goodness and David Belle (who plays Lino and is one of the real life founders of parkour) six-packiness that made them fall in love with the original film in the first place.
(Sure, I guess there are more than 3 possible types of people in this scenario, such as people who are aware of the original film but haven’t seen it… but indulge me as I try to break it down).
I’m interested in how folks in category #1 will react to Brick Mansions. Will fans of Paul Walker turn out in droves to support the “gone too soon” actor’s final completed film? Is parkour still something that people are thrilled by, or has that moment passed for the general populace? My press screening was a community screening packed to the gills, and people seemed to be gasping and laughing at all the right places. (There were maybe a few extra laughs and groans coming from the critics’ section).
I could easily have found myself in category #2, and I will say I was shocked when Brick Mansions’ Luc Besson penned screenplay followed so closely to the original film’s… Luc Besson penned screenplay. (Maybe I shouldn’t have been so shocked?) Even character names and tattoos (not to mention every single scene, right on up to the “girl chained to a Russian missile” climax and conclusion) were the exact same as the French film, only with more/worse cutting and “stylistic” chopping chosen by director and frequent Luc Besson collaborator Camille Delamarre, and Paul Walker playing the undercover cop role of Damian instead of Cyril Raffaelli. David Belle plays the exact same character as in the original film, which had to have been a bizarre exercise for him. And, while Paul Walker is much prettier than Cyril Raffaelli, I don’t actually believe that he can do the crazy physical stunts and tricks that I inherently believed Raffaelli could do. So plan to have some “suspension of disbelief” crises as you watch Brick Mansions. Your threshold for this kind of thing, as well as for distilled “dumb”, will greatly impact your ability to enjoy this film.
Which brings me to category #3, the category I somehow fall into. I had a lot of fun watching Brick Mansions. I can’t help but acknowledge that almost everything it does, it does worse than the original did it. And although I will eternally love parkour and hope it never goes away, this remake feels oddly late. District B13 and the “parkour” peak all came many years ago.
So what is there to like? Well, to be honest, I think I am just a parkour fanboy. I love it so much. Watching David Belle hop, skip, jump, squeeze, and fight through foot chases is just a primal delight for me, and I found myself happy for him that this American remake did come along, if only to increase his international profile a little bit and maybe get him some more work. The guy’s physical presence is spectacular, even if he should maybe try to stick to French as his spoken filmic language. And although I’ve never been an enormous Fast And The Furious fan or Paul Walker defender, there was just something pleasant about seeing him in one of his final roles, doing what he does best… beating people down, and being a bro, with a twinkle in his eye. The film isn’t some kind of amazing send off for Walker, but I really enjoyed his presence, even if I didn’t buy some of the stunts his character is supposed to have pulled off.
But I would be remiss not to bring up The RZA in his villainous turn as Tremaine. RZA has to be the worst actor working today that I consistently still want to see in movies. I bring all of my love for Wu Tang and knowledge of what RZA is passionate about to that previous statement. Tremaine is a villain for the people, an underdog type of villain who may be less corrupt than the politicians who kickstarted the whole plot of this movie, which is (as mentioned) a major Escape From New York knock off. This is the kind of ridiculous role where RZA at one point states outright “cash rules everything around me”, then proceeds to look at one of his henchmen and say “did you catch that?”. This is the kind of role where, in one pivotal scene, Tremaine confusingly slips into a Caribbean accent and you end up trying to figure out if RZA has been attempting this accent all along and we just didn’t catch it, or if this one high-tension scene is just the time when Tremaine decides to be playful and attempt something new in life? Now that I think about it, there was an earlier scene where Tremaine used the term “bumbaclot”, but since I never once detected even a faint Caribbean accent until said climactic scene, one can understand why I would be confused.
But, with all these knocks against RZA’s depiction of Tremaine, one fact remains: I had a lot of fun. RZA delivers lines with a flatness that borders on shocking, and his meta-Wu Tang jokes are groan inducing. But I laughed, heaven help me, I laughed. “Are you not entertained?”
The movie also has some questionable gender issues going on, with a very traditional “damsel in distress” situation, only here the damsel is wearing the sexiest waitress uniform I’ve ever seen for the entire film, and even ends up involved in a creepy, S&M-type fight with one of the villainesses who is clearly into Lola (Catalina Denis, playing Belle’s girlfriend).
I guess in the end, what I’m trying to say is that Brick Mansions is not a good movie, but I liked it. This happens to me often, and I can only point to that scale of “dumb” versus “fun” in my defense. I laughed, I cheered, I cringed, and I was once again awed by David Belle’s parkour prowess. And I guess some of the terrible elements, not the least of which being RZA’s every uttered word, were so over the top that they offered me a different kind of entertainment than was perhaps intended, but offered entertainment none the less.
If you are a category #1 kind of person, who likes to see the latest American action movies and isn’t necessarily an established fan of District B13, then sure… I’d recommend seeing Brick Mansions as long as you go in prepared to measure the film on that “dumb vs fun” nexus. Fans of District B13 have essentially already seen Brick Mansions, and need not spend any hard earned cash on this iteration unless a truly head-scratching RZA performance sounds like exactly what you needed this weekend.
And I’m Out.
Originally published at old.cinapse.co on April 25, 2014.